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Topic 1
Topic 3
KISWAHILI IN INTERNATIONAL LEVELS
a) Official Language in EAC
Big
news! The East African Community has decided to use Swahili as their the
official language. This is no surprise, as a large part of the population in
most of the association’s countries already speak the language. However, this
is not the case in Uganda, which is why all Ugandan citizens have been ordered
by the government to learn the language.
When a number of countries form an alliance and a number of
countries share the same language, it can be convenient use this language as
the main language of communication. According to the Africa Report, this is exactly what
happened for the East African Community, which consists of Kenya, Tanzania,
Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. They have declared Swahili to be their official
language.
This decision can easily be explained, as Tanzania and
Kenya already regard Swahili, which is a mix between the local languages of
east African tribes and Arabic, as an official language, the Africa Report
says.
In addition, many people in Rwanda and Burundi speak the
language as well. The only outsider here is Uganda; here, Swahili is only
spoken by a small part of the population.
The Africa Report claims this has to do with the fact that
many Ugandans dislike the language because it was used by dictators and
colonial officials.
The Ugandan government has decided that now the language
will become the official language of the EAC, all Ugandans must learn Swahili.
According to the Africa Report, this president Yoweri Museveni
is thus keen to increase the popularity of the language. To create more Swahili
speakers, all institutions involved in languages have not only been asked to
use Swahili, but also to promote the language and teach it to those that do not
speak it. As a result, the government hopes the language will become another
national language in Uganda, the African Report says.
According to Barbra Nekesa, Uganda’s Information Minister,
the government hopes the decision to make Swahili more widespread in the
country will mean conducting business with other EAC states will be easier. She
says communication will run more smoothly as the language barrier between
business partners will disappear. Nekesa states that the Ugandan government has
always promoted the Swahili language but that the
negative image the language obtained during the regime of dictator Idi Amin had
prevented the efforts from becoming successful.
b) Official Language in SADC
In celebration of 2019 as the International Year Of
Indigenous Languages, SADC has adopted a language from its east African
brothers and sisters. Not only will Swahili be recognized as an official
language, but will be recognized as a mode of communication in business in all
sectors and the environment.
Last
week the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB) welcomed the declaration by
the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) to adopt kiSwahili as its
fourth official language of communication.
The announcement came as the world celebrated 2019 as the
International Year Of Indigenous Languages and was announced during the SADC
39th heads of summit in Tanzanian at the Julius Nyerere International
Conference Centre to ensure that the marginalization of African languages as
languages of business was dealt with.
“This milestone achievement towards recognition and
elevation of indigenous African languages across the SADC region forms part of
the greater effort in ensuring development, usage and intellectualisation of
our heritage languages,” said the Chairperson of the Board, Dr David wa
Maahlamela.
Existing official languages of SADC currently are
English, Portuguese and French.
Africa is the only continent where a majority of
the languages taught in schools are international foreign languages such as
Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
“KiSwahili would be adopted at the level of Council
and Summit, first as a language for oral communication, before eventually being
adopted for written official communication within SADC,” says GCIS.
It is already an official language of the African
Union.
“KiSwahili is an impeccable point of departure in
safeguarding integrative multilingualism inclusive of indigenous languages,”
Maahlamela said.
It is also the official language of Kenya, Tanzania
and Rwanda with over 100 million speakers.
“We have for long been very much concerned that not
only South Africa has experienced the marginalisation of indigenous languages,
but also our SADC region, where mostly English language took prominence amongst
others.
“South Africa as a member state has a huge
responsibility ahead in ensuring that indigenous language not only becomes communication
languages, but also business languages in all sectors and environment,”
Maahlamela concluded.
c) Kiswahili in AU
The African Union has joined the campaigns to elevate Kiswahili as one of its common languages even as it prepares for heads of State meeting on July 7.
The African Academy of Languages, AU’s specialised institution mandated to develop and promote African languages, has entered into a partnership with the East African Kiswahili Commission to “promote wide use of Kiswahili for regional integration and sustainable development.”
Adoption of Kiswahili as a continental language implies that there will always be a Kiswahili translator at all the bloc’s official meetings with documents, including treaties and agreements also being authored in the East African language.
“The AU has partnered with the EAC to set the pace for the recognition and promotion of Kiswahili as a Language of Wider Communication in the whole of Africa,” the EAC Secretariat said in a statement on Wednesday.
The push to make Kiswahili a pan-African lingua franca comes as the bloc moves to set rules for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) unveiled in Kigali last year.
A committee of experts is working on the rules of origin to be applied by all the AfCTA signatories.
On Saturday, President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to join other African leaders for the AU Extra-Ordinary Summit and the first AfCTA meeting in Niamey, Niger.
A common language plays a crucial role in commerce. African countries have adopted a number of official languages that include English, French, Arabic and Portuguese, depending on their colonial heritage.
In a statement, the EAC secretary general Liberat Mfumukeko, said the Kiswahili push was driven by realisation by EAC policy organs of the importance of the language in regional integration.
“The language is a strategic resource for communication and active citizen participation in development,” he said.
d) Kiswahili in South Africa
Kiswahili
will, from 2020, become the latest language to be taught in South Africa’s
classrooms. This East African lingua franca, which is also an official language
of the African Union, will be an optional subject.
The news has been greeted with interest and has drawn praise from some
quarters. But practical questions related to South Africa’s current sociolinguistic
and educational contexts must be asked. For instance, why does South Africa
need another language on top of the local 11 as well as the various foreign
languages some schools offer? Has the country done all it can to champion local
languages before adding another to the mix? And is there space on an already
crowded timetable to successfully carry on this project?
These questions shouldn’t be ignored, but I would argue that the benefits of
introducing Kiswahili far outweigh the risks. There are several reasons for
this, among them the chance to prepare South African pupils for rich
interactions in trade, academia and ordinary daily life elsewhere on the
continent.
Kiswahili most likely originated on East Africa’s coast. It came about as a result of intermarriage between Bantu-speaking communities along the East African coast and Arabs who arrived at the coast from as early as before 10th C, AD. It then spread into the interior through trade, Christian activities such as missionary work, and exploration activities in the East African mainland.
Today
the language is spoken widely in the larger Eastern Africa region as a lingua
franca, a language used between people who don’t speak one another’s native
language. It’s a national language in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, and an official language of the East African
Community which comprises Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and South
Sudan.
Its
use is spreading to southern, western and northern Africa. Currently, however,
none of these countries are teaching Kiswahili as a subject the way South
Africa intends to; instead, it is generally a language of trade and
inter-ethnic communication. However, it may not be long until more countries
join South Africa in teaching it in classrooms since the language is spreading
fast and becoming a household language in many of these countries in addition
to its adoption as one of the official languages of the African Union.
Kiswahili
is also a popular research subject at many South African universities. And it’s
studied outside Africa, most particularly in the US and Europe. This global
interest in the adoption of Kiswahili points at its growing international
significance. This implies that its introduction into South African schools is
a good move with multiple benefits.
mmenisaidia sana nashukuruni
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